The Rube’s Review: H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon (2001)

As a horror fanatic, I have always enjoyed the movies of Stuart Gordon. Who could forget the Re-Animator series, Space Truckers (Rube’s review is coming!), Robot Jox or Castle Freak? Of all these classic titles, the Rube would like to take a moment to review one of his lesser known movies, Dagon.

Co-produced by long time collaborator Brian Yuzna, the film starts with Paul (Ezra Godden), your “typical” American guy that has the same reoccurring dream of ancient sunken ruins guarded by a SUPER HOT mermaid. After being woken up by a nautical wet dream gone wrong, Paul joins his generic, blonde girlfriend, Barbara, and a snooty foreign couple boat side as they sail around the Spanish coast towards the Isle of Imboca. Then – BAM! – God kicks it up a notch with quick superstorm.

Paul (along with Barbara) is forced take a raft to the mainland so he can save Barbara’s injured… family? friends? Paul’s boss? You know what, it really doesn’t matter since the tragedy/death of their friends only takes 5 minutes. The most important thing is that Paul and Barbara end up in the Spanish fishing town where all the streets are vacant except for singing coming from a church. The young couple quickly gets separated and it’s not long before Paul find himself on the run from foreign, mutant-fish-flipper people. Why are they hassling him? Will Paul survive to learn the secrets of Imboca?. More importantly, will he ever get to bang that hot mermaid of his dreams?

Even though it’s one of Stuart Gordon’s lesser known films, Dagon shouldn’t be underestimated. Trust the Rube, Dagon is a good horror movie. Once again, with limited budget, Stuart Gordon knows how to scare his audience and put them on the edge of their seats. It has all of the things that make a good suspenseful horror film; the gloomy fishing town is just plain creepy and is full of slow, shifting cloaked figures making inhuman noises as they attack.

Godden does a great job as the confused Paul and adds a comic relief touch to his character while still showing the emotion of pure terror and narrowly escaping the mutant townsfolk. Speaking of which, there’s also a good amount of scares and gore to go around. Every chase scene if full of suspense and does a great job entertaining you for the film’s 90-minute runtime, which makes it perfect to kick off your next weekend-long horror movie marathon.

Fun Fact: Did you know that Re-Animator’s Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna co-wrote Disney’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?

The Rube is co-owner of Rusty Quarters Retro Arcade & Museum in Minneapolis, MN. He is also a Special Effects Artist, Master Chef, and Multiple Threadless Design Winner. Other than writing reviews and doodling, he enjoys watching bad movies, building monster model kits, and collecting games for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

My friends and I rented this in college to make fun of during our weekly Monday Night Movie. It turned out that the movie was so good and scary that we ended up just watching it. The same thing happened with “The Pool”. A surprisingly good slasher flick with creative kills.